Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 out now

The new browser will be deployed automatically through Windows Update.

Internet Explorer 11 is now available for Windows 7 users, bringing Microsoft's fastest, most secure, and most standards-compliant browser to the company's most widely used operating system.

The browser is almost—but not quite—identical to its Windows 8.1 counterpart. On Windows 8.1, the browser supports the DRM-in-HTML standard Encrypted Media Extensions, and the Windows 8.1 version has a more restrictive security sandbox. There are also various small differences between the two.

As with Internet Explorer 10—and in a change to older versions of Internet Explorer—version 11 will be rolled out as an automatic update. The first users to get the browser will be those with the Release Preview installed. It will then be rolled out to other Windows 7 users in the coming weeks or months.

Windows 8 users who want the new browser will have to upgrade to Windows 8.1.

87 Reader Comments

HAHAHAHA people now blaming web developers because Microshaft has 6 different browsers we have to cater to and the most recent one wont even let you write code specifically for it.

Wow....

Well, since the way we got into this mess is by web developers coding to browsers, rather than to spec, yes, blaming them seems appropriate. If they (collectively, all of them) had insisted on coding to spec back in '99, MS would've had to fix their browser (the only way that would've worked if it was close enough to 100% to be functionally equivalent, and so long as there were alternative browsers that followed spec--which there have always been). MS's trying to make it impossible to code to a specific browser, and rightly so.

Or, to put it another way: you do *not* "have to" cater to all their browsers. You can simply let your website be broken with MSIE.

Those are the main websites in the local school district. None of the above work/display correctly in IE10 or IE11. Some of the above work in IE9. All of the above work in IE8, although they are very slow to load/render. Toggling compatibility mode in IE10/11 doesn't help.

HAHAHAHA people now blaming web developers because Microshaft has 6 different browsers we have to cater to and the most recent one wont even let you write code specifically for it.

Wow....

Well, since the way we got into this mess is by web developers coding to browsers, rather than to spec, yes, blaming them seems appropriate. If they (collectively, all of them) had insisted on coding to spec back in '99, MS would've had to fix their browser (the only way that would've worked if it was close enough to 100% to be functionally equivalent, and so long as there were alternative browsers that followed spec--which there have always been). MS's trying to make it impossible to code to a specific browser, and rightly so.

Or, to put it another way: you do *not* "have to" cater to all their browsers. You can simply let your website be broken with MSIE.

I'm having trouble imagining a professional environment that would sustain an attitude like that.

Now maybe the developer was told that IE is all that mattered, because the application was being developed for a strictly all-Windows environment. Or maybe only IE supported some feature the application required, such as one of its various integrations with other Windows applications. This all being 6-10 years ago when any application still stuck on IE would have been developed, assuming such an application hasn't since then been replaced with a modern, standards-compliant version.

Now, certainly anything IE can do, some standards-compliant approach can do better, and maybe a better manager would make a better decision in support of that, and maybe a better kind of organization with better priorities would find a way to give its developers the power and resources they require in order to make the best decisions about platforms and architecture that best serve the interests of the organization… sure, that's all entirely possible.

But never have I encountered a developer that deliberately chose a more-awkward, less-compatible, harder-to-maintain option over an easily-implemented, more-elegant, more-compatible, easier-to-support alternative. Not without external forces or limitations beyond their control.

Unless a team is run entirely by amateurs and novices with nobody around to show them any better, and granted, that's more than a few teams out there… surely it's the developers themselves who would much rather make their lives -not- an unending living nightmare, with the added benefit that it improves the web experience for the end-user also.

And even when that's not the case for some rare reason... whatever reason… blaming web site and web application developers for the smear of shit left in the wake of Internet Explorer is plainly outrageous. They're the ones banging away, risking their own sanity, trying to make this shit work in whatever shitty browser every dumbass on the Internet might have, in order to deliver their products, quite often to the minimal gratitude of someone else who only cares that it gets done so they can make a lot of money.

I try not to march around preaching that users should be grateful for the work done by countless unseen developers to make an Internet worthy of smartphones and broadband, but assertions that web developers are in fact to BLAME for the shittiness of the Internet should be made only after every account has been closed on Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and iTunes, after the smartphone is destroyed and the cable modem disconnected, after bills are converted back to paper, after every game subscription is canceled, after debit cards are traded in for paper checks or better yet cash, and after the job is quit and the bunk is reserved at the goddamn backwoods farm, while staring in a mirror, saying "Yep, I had nothing to do with demanding all of that in the first place. The web developers did this to me."

Are we beyond needing to ask what it breaks? Has IE reached a point where users with 10 need not worry about upgrading?

Absolutely NOT.

MS thinks that IE11 is "more standards compliant", so they changed the User Agent to make most web sites think it is Firefox (much more than just starting with Mozilla like they've done at least since IE4). Since it isn't really standards compliant, the HTML and Javascript that sites would send to Firefox doesn't work on IE11. Until just before the 8.1 general availability, g-mail was completely unusable on IE11 unless you put it in HTML-only mode with no javascript. More comically, partner.microsoft.com would not allow you to log in with IE11 saying the browser was inadequate.

Generally sites have completely broken coding which breaks easily.(Like very bad browser detection which is more WTF level fail then anything else)) It's not the way you describe.

HAHAHAHA people now blaming web developers because Microshaft has 6 different browsers we have to cater to and the most recent one wont even let you write code specifically for it.

Wow....

Well, since the way we got into this mess is by web developers coding to browsers, rather than to spec, yes, blaming them seems appropriate. If they (collectively, all of them) had insisted on coding to spec back in '99, MS would've had to fix their browser (the only way that would've worked if it was close enough to 100% to be functionally equivalent, and so long as there were alternative browsers that followed spec--which there have always been). MS's trying to make it impossible to code to a specific browser, and rightly so.

Or, to put it another way: you do *not* "have to" cater to all their browsers. You can simply let your website be broken with MSIE.

IIRC:The only trouble is, that back then late in IE6 development there was sudden change in HTML spec causing massive problem. Original plan was to fix those deviations in next version, but later team got disbanded and IE merged into Windows group (for original Vista). We all remember how that went well, which caused reinstating of team, so they could start again standalone development.(Note: I know there was interesting article out there on the topic of IE6 and HTML standard, but Ican't so far find it.)

Those are the main websites in the local school district. None of the above work/display correctly in IE10 or IE11. Some of the above work in IE9. All of the above work in IE8, although they are very slow to load/render. Toggling compatibility mode in IE10/11 doesn't help.

All of the above work in Firefox and Chrome.

Sounds like brutally badly coded websites, because devs failed to even write bad idea aka browser detection, which causes scripts and CSS to fail when probably old fallback code tries to execute on new version of IE. Compatibility mode should fix that. (meta tag to set IE8 mode) That would also explain why other browsers are unaffected.Idiocy of developer shouldn't be attributed to browser as you just did. That's shifting blame where you want, not where it by facts in reality belong.

One of the issues with IE11 is that it no longer uses MSIE in its user agent string, which can break a lot of websites expecting to run IE specific code based on finding that. Instead they were using a "like gecko" user agent so that sites would think IE11 would render things just as firefox or another gecko based browser would.

Yeah, I'm encountering the user agent string issue on some sites I use. I'm using it on Windows 7. The "like gecko" doesn't cut it.

You can use the developer tools (F-12) and the emulation mode, you can choose IE 10 or another past version of IE or from a list of other browsers including Chrome, Firefox or even Safari or cell phone device type browsers to emulate. The problem with the emulation mode is it doesn't stick and once you close the developers tools the emulation goes away, can't do multi-tab browsing or start up another browser instance.

One of the issues with IE11 is that it no longer uses MSIE in its user agent string, which can break a lot of websites expecting to run IE specific code based on finding that. Instead they were using a "like gecko" user agent so that sites would think IE11 would render things just as firefox or another gecko based browser would.

Yeah, I'm encountering the user agent string issue on some sites I use. I'm using it on Windows 7. The "like gecko" doesn't cut it.

You can use the developer tools (F-12) and the emulation mode on a per-site basis, you can choose IE 10 or another past version of IE or from a list of other browsers including Chrome, Firefox or even Safari or cell phone device type browsers to emulate. The problem with the emulation mode is it doesn't stick and once you close the developers tools the emulation goes away, can't do multi-tab browsing or start up another browser instance.

You can force compatibility mode from tools->compatibility view settings. Another way would be to change UA string yourself. I don't think there is IE dialog for that, but it should be still registry key, so utilities for this should still work.

One of the issues with IE11 is that it no longer uses MSIE in its user agent string, which can break a lot of websites expecting to run IE specific code based on finding that. Instead they were using a "like gecko" user agent so that sites would think IE11 would render things just as firefox or another gecko based browser would.

Yeah, I'm encountering the user agent string issue on some sites I use. I'm using it on Windows 7. The "like gecko" doesn't cut it.

You can use the developer tools (F-12) and the emulation mode on a per-site basis, you can choose IE 10 or another past version of IE or from a list of other browsers including Chrome, Firefox or even Safari or cell phone device type browsers to emulate. The problem with the emulation mode is it doesn't stick and once you close the developers tools the emulation goes away, can't do multi-tab browsing or start up another browser instance.

You can force compatibility mode from tools->compatibility view settings. Another way would be to change UA string yourself. I don't think there is IE dialog for that, but it should be still registry key, so utilities for this should still work.

compatibility view was one of the first things I tried, it sort of worked but not too well on some of the sites I use. The emulation thing is the only thing that allowed me to use those sites properly. Did not have any issues with these sites with IE 10 so that's what I selected to emulate with on those sites. IE 11in Windows 8 I think has a menu item for emulation someone told me, but IE 11 on windows 7 you have to do the F12 developers tools.

Yes, you can change it via the registry, tried it on one of my Windows 7 systems with IE 11 and it works. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537503.aspx for information, in the bottom half of the page it gives the registry location and the types of changes to put in. You will need the user agent string for which ever browser you want the user agent string to reflect. The change does not take effect immediately, after making the changes you will need to restart the system and log back into windows

One of the issues with IE11 is that it no longer uses MSIE in its user agent string, which can break a lot of websites expecting to run IE specific code based on finding that. Instead they were using a "like gecko" user agent so that sites would think IE11 would render things just as firefox or another gecko based browser would.

Yeah, I'm encountering the user agent string issue on some sites I use. I'm using it on Windows 7. The "like gecko" doesn't cut it.

You can use the developer tools (F-12) and the emulation mode on a per-site basis, you can choose IE 10 or another past version of IE or from a list of other browsers including Chrome, Firefox or even Safari or cell phone device type browsers to emulate. The problem with the emulation mode is it doesn't stick and once you close the developers tools the emulation goes away, can't do multi-tab browsing or start up another browser instance.

You can force compatibility mode from tools->compatibility view settings. Another way would be to change UA string yourself. I don't think there is IE dialog for that, but it should be still registry key, so utilities for this should still work.

compatibility view was one of the first things I tried, it sort of worked but not too well on some of the sites I use. The emulation thing is the only thing that allowed me to use those sites properly. Did not have any issues with these sites with IE 10 so that's what I selected to emulate with on those sites. IE 11in Windows 8 I think has a menu item for emulation someone told me, but IE 11 on windows 7 you have to do the F12 developers tools.

Yes, you can change it via the registry, tried it on one of my Windows 7 systems with IE 11 and it works. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537503.aspx for information, in the bottom half of the page it gives the registry location and the types of changes to put in. You will need the user agent string for which ever browser you want the user agent string to reflect. The change does not take effect immediately, after making the changes you will need to restart the system and log back into windows

Ok-. Thanks for confirmation. (So far didn't need it, so it was untested)